The quality of oil is critical in a number of different applications including industrial applications, food related applications, and the like. Typically, in order to determine oil quality, one has to obtain a sample of the oil and thereafter analyze the oil in a laboratory setting to determine the quality thereof.
For example, dielectric insulating oil is utilized in many electrical devices such as power transformers, load tap changers (LTCs), circuit breakers and voltage regulators. For example, the use of vacuum interruption during switching using LTCs began a few decades ago and its use is increasing with greater customer acceptance. The two primary suppliers of vacuum LTCs utilize preventative autotransformer (reactor) switching principle with vacuum interrupters to accomplish the tap change. The problem with this method of switching is that failure of the vacuum interrupter can lead to property damage and/or personal injury. However, the failure of the vacuum interruption system in other LTCs does not result in an immediate failure. This is due to a different switching technology. One such LTC was tested and continued to operate with arcing in oil for more than 20,000 operations. Nevertheless, even these LTCs will typically eventually fail. With constantly decreasing budgets, utilities are faced with the need to extend maintenance cycles which require de-energized internal inspections while not reducing the reliability. These internal inspections are costly and time-consuming.
Similarly, many food grade oils are stored and subsequently utilized in food preparation. However, the food grade oils sometime become contaminated or spoiled. This results in subsequent contamination or spoilage of the resulting food product.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system and process to more accurately, quickly, and more cost-effectively detect early-stage problems with oil products utilizing new monitoring systems.